Smartphone shipments in India apparently grew by 15% in Q2 2016, as per a recent Counterpoint Research report. In contrast, the global handset market only rose by 3% in the same quarter.
Samsung has managed to remain top dog in the Indian smartphone market. It’s followed by Micromax in second place and Intex in third place. Lava and Lenovo round up the list. LTE-ready phones did brisk business in the second quarter of the year, growing by a whopping 264%, while Chinese firms rose by 80%.
Moreover, the $100 – $150 price band climbed up by 48% year-on-year. All three were key growth drivers for the phone market in India in Q2 2016. Chinese brand continue to dominate the local market, commanding a 27% share overall thanks to the presence of manufacturers like Oppo, Vivo, Xiaomi, Lenovo and LeEco.
The Counterpoint study also found that the number of companies following the Make In India initiative has jumped from just 10 to 35 during the second quarter of 2016. These brands supposedly contributed to 70% of the total smartphone production volume in that period of time.
Also Read: Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 tops Antutu’s list of most popular smartphones in India
However, the lack of component ecosystem is still proving to be a barrier to increase local value addition. The 15% growth in Q2 2016 is lower than the previous one’s 23% growth. Q2 2015 had seen an even higher rate of 34%. Counterpoint thinks that this slowdown can be attributed to the paucity in multi-lingual support in smartphones.